#1 The Disgusting Swedish Torture Drink
"They laid the servant down on the ground, stuck a plywood in his mouth, and poured a milk bucket full of nasty dung- pool water into his mouth".
Hello there!
Welcome to the first post from Things from the Past. Today we will learn all about the disgusting Swedish torture drink.
Swedish Drink sounds like a rather appealing drink. But it is far from what it sounds like. It was one of the worst ways to punish someone, mainly used to get useful information. It went on for years before it finally came to an end.
What was the Swedish Drink?
Swedish drink came from the German name “Schwedentrunk,” which was used by Swedish mercenaries to oppress their victims. During the thirty years war of Germany, from 1618 to 1648, most of Germany was deeply indulged in the war. On the other hand, the mercenaries were not paid well enough, so they were allowed to raid different villages and keep whatever they could get their hands on. The Germans raided every village they found for years. Finally, when the people retaliated, the Germans found a way to get them to speak. That’s when they introduced the Swedish Drink.
The Ingredients
Swedish drink is not made of anything amusing. It was a way of inflicting extreme torture upon the villagers to hand over all their money and goods to the mercenaries. The drink was made of:
· Human Waste
· Animal Feces
· Sludge
· Urine
· And all the other disgusting things, mixed into water or other liquid manure.
A German writer, Hans Jacob Christoffel, described the process as;
“They laid the servant down on the ground, stuck a plywood in his mouth, and poured a milk bucket full of nasty dung- pool water into his mouth”.
One of the residents of Beelitz Town, Peter Thick, wrote;
“The robbers and murderers took hold of the poor people by their throats, stirred water, and then poured it in. And yes, probably people’s feces. The people were miserably tormented for money, like the one citizen in Beelitz, called David Ortël, and soon he died of it”.
The torture worked so well that the people started talking as soon as they were even threatened to be punished with the drink. Many died while most of the victims suffered from serious infections because of all the filth they had to intake. After the drink caused excessive bloating, the mercenaries used to put wooden boards on the victim's stomach and walk on them.
Soon this punishment was bought to an end, and a new one was introduced.
The Water Cure
Water is a blessing for sure, but too much of anything can be dangerous and lethal. After the Swedish drink, a water cure was introduced to torture people. However, the technique used was far from a cure. Instead, it was pure torture by using something as simple as water. It first started after the Amboyna Massacre in 1623.
The Torture Technique
The common victims of the torture were the East India Company employees and Japanese and Portuguese traders. One of the working Dutch of East India Company describes the process as;
“They poured the water softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so that they could not draw breath, but he must suck in the water which being continued to be poured in softly, forced all his inward parts, come out of his nose, ears, eyes, and often as it was stifling and checking him, at length took away his breath, and bought him do a swoon or fainting”.
He said that the victim’s belly was swollen up and became 2 to 3 times bigger than it was before.
The Questioning
The whole process had two steps; ordinary questioning and extraordinary questioning. First, around 3.6 liters of water was forced by a funnel into the victim’s mouth, and then he was questioned. If he did not give the desired answer in the first round, he would have to go through extraordinary questioning, which involved double the amount of water. A Scottish traveler, William Lithgow, published a book in 1732, in which he wrote how he was tortured the same way. According to him, he was left to starve first, and the Spanish called the process “Bostezo”.
He described it as;
“ My hunger clenched belly waxing great, grew drum-like, bolstered; for it being a suffocating pain. My throat with its struggling force; it strangled and swallowed up my breath from yowling and growling”.
The technique was of Rinse and Repeat till the person either talked or died.
How Much Liquid Kills A Person?
Whether it is a bucket full of water or full of human excretes, how much intake is too much and could kill a person?
A US pathologist noted in an article that — 1.5 liters of water at a time is fine, where 3 liters would be a bit too much. While, if a person consumes 6 liters of water, he can easily be killed by it. The stomach would fill up with water and eventually harm the tissue walls spurting it up inside the body. The content then would enter the rest of the body, causing incredible and unbearable pain.
What excruciating torture! With the rapid progress in societies and politics, people left these ancient practices way behind them, and these stories just seem like myths now. But once upon a time, they were common practices.
Well, I must say you did not disappoint. I am so glad we are a bit more civilized now.
Interesting read!!